William Russell vs Wilton Chamberlain

Until the NBA awards the title to the team with the player that scores the most points in the regular season, it will be Russell.

Two stats really matter - wins, titles.

 

Wilt was by far the better player. It's not even close.

The reason Russell won 11 in 13 is because of Cousy, Sharman, Havlicek, Jones, Heinsohn, the list goes on and on. He had such a better supporting cast that it wasn't even funny.

Head to head, though, Wilt would kick Russell's ass all over the court. It makes me a little sick that Russell gets all the love and adulation that he gets from historians today. He was a great player, but to me he would barely crack the top five centers of all-time because I'd have Wilt, Kareem, Shaq ahead of him for sure and I'd be thisclose to putting Olajuwan ahead of him as well. All, in my opinion, were better players than him.

Russell was a great, great leader, and a great great shotblocker. But he played with one of the best point guards of all-time, he played in a league where the talent wasn't even spread out and he played with one of the best small forwards of all-time. He gets credit that he doesn't deserve, including from those who try to claim that he was better than Wilt.

 

If wins and titles are all that matters, then Russell supporters must favor Steve Kerr over Steve Nash, right?

This debate by definition involves individuals, not their whole teams. Individually speaking, Wilt wins this in a landslide.

He was a high-maintenance teammate, from most reports, while Russell was 180 degrees in the other direction: A guy who instilled a sense of team in other guys on their roster. That's a big, important difference.

But in every other way as a basketball player, Wilt was superior.

Going by playground style, as for which one would get picked first, I'm thinking it would be Wilt nine times out of 10.

 

Too bad the middle names didn't make it into the title of this thread: Felton vs. Norman.

 

Baylor, West, Walker, Greer and Cunningham were just a bunch of bums I guess.

 

Wilt was my boyhood sports hero. Totally. He was one of the most astonishing athletes of all time and surely one of the five best basketball players of all time. I was raised to hate the Celtics and all their works (that I wound up covering them for years is just one of those little ironies).
But Russell was better. In basketball, more than any other sport, the sum is more than the total of the parts for a winner. And nobody made his team's sums greater than the total of the parts than Russell did.
FWIW, I rate Jordan slightly ahead of Russell because it's very hard to create a dominant team with average to slightly above average centers.

 

Let's try again . . .

In 1965 Philly had Hal Greer, Lucious Jackson, Chet Walker and Larry Costello (25+ All-Star teams between them) and were arguably equal to the Celtics in talent.

Over the next three seasons (1966-67 (BillyC comes aboard)-68), Philly finished with a better regular-season record than Boston each of those seasons but found a way to lose to them in the playoffs. In 1968 Philly was 8 games better than Boston and led them 3-1 in the playoffs. Still lost. Cousy was long gone (retired in '63). Sharman? Gone (retired in '61, for crying out loud). Heinsohn? Gone. This Hall of Fame murderers' row everybody keeps remembering was done by the middle of the 1960s. Sam Jones, Satch Sanders, Don Nelson and John Havlicek were fine players, but please. Pretty please.

Then, in 1969, Wilt teams with West and Baylor in L.A. and loses again to the Celtics. All 3 were past their prime, but still . . . they lost to a Celtics team that finished FOURTH in the East that year.

Now . . . is someone really going to argue that a Celtics team that finished 8 games behind Philly in 1968, and a Celtics team that finished FOURTH in the East in 1969 had "such a better supporting cast that it wasn't even funny"?

Or will this myth continue for another 40 years?

I can't believe I have spent two days defending two players (Rose, Russell) whom I grew up hating.

 

Not that this doesn't push the realm of statistics even further past what some people will accept, but the '69 Boston team rated as even with LA in Pythagorean Wins. They scored like a 55-27 team. They were just uncannily bad at winning close games.

 

Also, is it possible that Chamberlain was a better player vs. the rest of the league, but that Russell presented a specific matchup problem for him?

 

This post rates a 100 in Pythagorean bullshit. :-\

I'm not a stat-hater, but the Pythagorean stats are just alternative universe silly. Too much focus on what could have been, not what was. For all I know, my Pythagorean cock is 14 inches long and I should have been a porn superstar. Who's going to prove that wrong?

The 1969 Celtics are an apparent exception, but I would venture to guess that most teams that have high Pythagorean records don't live up to their what-if record in the postseason most of the time.

 

A squared plus B squared equals what the fuck are you talking about?